shangrila-ladida

[shangrilaladida]

An Incomplete Story of Land Reparations: a zine

An Incomplete Story of Land Reparations is a hand-drawn zine I made, a partial history of the land that came to be called the United States. It moves from highlighting harms done, into acts of solidarity and resistance, and then into re-envisioning/reclaiming futures.

Included is a list of some of the organizations doing the crucial and beautiful work of repair: NEFOCLT, the Farm School NYC and Brooklyn Supported Agriculture.

Hard copies of the zine are available for $20 (domestic US shipping included), with proceeds going to each of the extraordinary folks above (feel free to DM me here if interested).

[shangrilaladida]

Papier mached life preservers representing the Resistance & Resilience of all our shorefront nabes in the #PeoplesClimateMarch. Join us as we build from 3-10pm, Tues to Fri this week, at the most righteous #Mayday Space, 214 Starr St, BK. And see you on the 21st!

[shangrilaladida]

From the sweet kids of our "We Are One" procession, taking place August 7...

[rushay-blog]

We looking forward to host Jean Grae for this years @powerupyouthproject in the township of Joe Slovo in Port Elizabeth check out our IndieGoGo campaign http://bit.ly/jeangreasy #campaign #community #fundraise #rapper #hiphop #puppetry #africa #southafrica #project #youth

[shangrilaladida]

Sicily is a land of volcanic rock, aloe and palm, enveloped by the Mediterranean.

Mt. Etna in her dramatic majesty…

the gardens of Palermo…

translated to a wall in the city’s la Kalsa district…

It lies closer to the African continent than to the European one, and...

[lynoregalore-blog]

So happy and excited to be a part of this!

[shangrilaladida]

what the kids understand, and want to build our next project around...

[shangrilaladida]

Another Issue, Another Procession (or at least the seeds of one)…

Sicily is a land of volcanic rock, aloe and palm, enveloped by the Mediterranean.

Mt. Etna in her dramatic majesty...

the gardens of Palermo...

translated to a wall in the city's la Kalsa district...

It lies closer to the African continent than to the European one, and as I was told, “Without Arabic culture, there would be no Sicilian culture,” which is palpable in the sounds of the dialect spoken, the ubiquitous presence of lemon trees, the rhythms played on frame drums.

my idea of a fruit stand...

why do we not continue to adorn all the things of daily life?...

 yes, it's the tourist stuff, but still...

And as with other millennia-old cultures, Sicily is where a lot of life exists in public space, as folks gather in piazzas to talk, to drink, to play music, to take in the warm summer night (my New York self was struck to see even a police car patiently wait to pass through the multi-generational crowd, as I’ve grown accustomed to the increased revoking of the common spaces where I live).

There’s much more to the story than wine and guitars on the steps of a crumbling medieval cathedral, of course.  For example, there’s also the truth of a population that must contend with entrenched corruption in most institutions, a historically unequal distribution of resources, and an ongoing struggle to maintain the basics of life that has trained so many folks to expect little in the way of change.

However, there also exists a large segment of that population that nonetheless is determined to act on behalf of the world they wish to be part of, and despite habitual discouragement and great risk. And I got to meet and to work with a most wonderful, welcoming, brilliant small group of them.  These folks are part of the many Sicilians who are committed to protecting their local economy, their health, their self-determination, and their environment, from being compromised by the plans of the U.S. Navy to install MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) onto Sicilian soil. 

found on balconies all over the island...

MUOS is a military satellite communication system, with one of four ground stations under construction in the Sicilian city of Niscemi, designed to facilitate the employment of “mobile user” warfighters (especially drones) worldwide (the other three are at U.S. military bases in Virginia, Hawaii and Australia).

Which means that in addition to the devastation of the farmland and the cork oak forest (vital in preventing desertification) in which it sits, and the heightened exposure of the population to electromagnetic waves, the U.S. base at Niscemi also violates many Sicilian’s opposition to the increased militarization of the island, and their desire for peace.

this will make sense shortly...

And the response of the people? There are the Mothers of NO MUOS, who have blocked the road leading to the base, cutting off soldiers’ and construction workers' access.  There was the August 9 demonstration, some 5000 strong, at the Niscemi site, which met with a violent reaction from Italian police. 

the view from Niscemi from War Resisters International...

There are the U.S. intellectuals and artists (Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Patti Smith among them) who have asked the Obama administration to immediately stop the installation and condemn the brutality against protesters.

 my hero, Patti Smith...

And the response of our small group? To use the power of images and performance and our creative ideas to contribute to the conversation, relay our message, and affect the tone of the actions we are engaging in, to speak to what we are doing this for, not just what we are against.

And so we laid the foundations for a NO MUOS procession.

In Sicily, the concept of procession is a particularly religious one, not associated with demonstration.  But public pageant, as well as puppetry and cantastoria (the “sung story”), elements that function in processional art, are deeply familiar traditions, ones that we referenced.

carried in the procession of Palermo's Sant'Agata...

a cantastoria, kinda, from Teatro Ditirammu's folkloric museum...

We began with a night at La Fucina, an independent social space off a cobblestoned piazza, considering the intersection of arts and activism used by groups such as Bread & Puppet theater (http://breadandpuppet.org) and Occupy Wall Street, especially the OWS Puppetry Guild (https://www.facebook.com/OWSPuppetGuild).

 our first night...

And then we set to work.  ARCI, a local community center, so graciously invited us to hold our laboratorio there, and so we had a full week given to us, to plan, to build, to come together as a new family of sorts.

our home at ARCI...

We looked at the basic issues connected with the installation of MUOS at Niscemi, located the most striking visuals within those, and began to flesh out a narrative, again, choosing to focus on what we need so urgently to protect.  Because that aspect can get lost amidst so much struggle and conflict. 

We decided upon a joyous, raucous, funeral procession for NO MUOS, inspired by Bread & Puppet’s “Funeral for a Rotten Idea”, an army of trees, a field of artichokes (the main crop in jeopardy), a block of children in tree-sprite masks laying it to rest, accompanied by the village brass band, and led by a cantastoria depicting with song and paint the history and implications of the project. 

We used our limited time together to at least build prototypes of each visual element, learning how to create three-dimensional forms from the ample supply of corrugated cardboard we found;

 why, it's the head of a tree, of course...

how to strengthen them with glue and colored papers from the stationery shop around the corner;

tree sprite production line...

not all leaves grow on trees...

giving life to cardboard and paper...

and how to fashion an armature from wood and wire for the largest tree puppet.

each of us bringing a particular expertise in...

The week was not about mounting a fully functioning procession, although I certainly look forward to that happening and contributing to the NO MUOS efforts.  Instead, it seems to me that it was about entering into the often messy world of working collectively, learning to give voice to, and find consensus around, potentially opposing visions and needs, and empowering each other to assume possibly unfamiliar leadership roles.  

When we have the tools to handle those moments skillfully, the bonds that are thus strengthened are profound to me, as is the recognition that the beautiful results of our laboratorio were fully dependent upon the presence of each and every one who participated, who showed up daily, who brought fabric and drills and hardware from home, who cooked vegan food to share at our potluck lunches,   

To me, this is the good stuff, the way I want to go down regardless of what the road ahead looks like.

If you are interested in learning more about NO MUOS:

https://www.facebook.com/NoMuosInternational

And on our shores, Code Pink is organizing a summit on drones to be held in Washington, DC in November:

http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6457

[shangrilaladida]

And What Came Next…

  “Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence”

Here’s what’s so righteous about what took place in November: that while a number of us came together to midwife this project, in the end, it did what should happen with all births.  It grew its own legs and continued on its own after my leaving Port Elizabeth, beginning its independent life in brilliant alignment with the “Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence”.

This campaign of more than twenty years was designed to be a global response, and an organizing strategy, calling for the elimination of all forms of violence against women.  And so the kids took the torch and ran, on more than one occasion…

oh yeah...

The first foray came just days after our initial run through the township as taxis transported a smaller version of the procession, several 6 foot tall puppets, banners and masks in tow, to the main thoroughfare of Govan Mbeki Street.  And here came the greater, yet desirable, challenge: the increased visibility of bringing this into the midst of a busy workday demanded the kids navigate through crowded downtown streets and pedestrian traffic. 

you're not a real man if you rape...

the river flows down govan mbeki street...

And they SO rose to the occasion, adapting the procession to sidewalks and a single performance site, but that site was the public space in front of City Hall, how purposeful, how very much the whole point of this project.   They lost not one bit of heart and fierce spirit, and even were joined by spoken word artist Poetic Soul, who wrote an original piece just for this event.   It’s what I find so beautiful about processional art, and what distinguishes it: that it joins so many together as it goes out into the community to bring its message, as it goes forth in a joyful and constructive way to the public.

bringing the beauty...

poetic soul

listening at city hall...

But then there was more.  Also part of the “Sixteen Days of Activism” was Port Elizabeth’s first “Take Back the Night” march, and the “Girls Have Power, Girls Have a Voice” procession featured significantly in it, the kids even translating their work from Xhosa in order to reach the more English-speaking crowd.  “Take Back the Night” marches have been held internationally over the past 30 years, intended as a protest, speaking out against rape and violence, but also as a means of preventing future abuse by raising community awareness.

taking back the early evening...

performing, yet again, the willful blindness of police and family...

Yet I think that one of the most critical tools in rewriting this story is the raising of self-awareness, self-love, self-empowerment, the understanding that you matter, that you deserve respect.  Which is why I continue to be in awe of this collaborative art form we’ve taken as our vehicle: that it is an opportunity for each person to test their strengths, their passion, to discover their own power while working on behalf of each other and literally re-visioning our world. This could be seen as the most potent protection, source of the most profound resilience, that there is.

powerhouses...

This is what ultimately feels true, the value of all that.  It’s far from uncomplicated, though: this idea can get eclipsed by recognizing people’s more immediate struggles for basic survival and dignity, or challenged by a fear of inflicting my own blind spots and ignorance upon others.   Knowing that I’ve much to learn about how to effectively respond to both makes me often question whether my actions are “part of the problem, or part of the solution”.

Yet this is what we are in together, this is the task we all are handed, understanding our inseparability. To that end, I was most inspired by the continued presence of the teaching artists and other adults who came out to each successive procession, in support of the young ones, the embodiment of dedication. I think I will never tire of witnessing people’s caring, of seeing folks time and again bother, stepping beyond their individual selves and coming together for the good of all of us, knowing that there most certainly is no “I” without an “Us”.

strong beyond measure in our unity...

[shangrilaladida]

Girls Have Power, Girls Have a Voice!

“We do not deserve this”

“We need you to trust us”

“Girls must stand together”

…echoed, using the people’s mic (human voice-powered amplification learned from Occupy Wall Street), by each of the 60 or so young ones in the procession, to the mass of neighbors, and folks from outside the township, who’d come out to march with us on this Saturday afternoon that threatened heavy winds and rain (but waited).

Our banners proclaimed…

“Boys Suport Girls”

“Do Not Break the Mirror You See Yourself In”

and...

  “You Are Not a Real Man if You Rape”...

…which are some very bold statements to make in an environment in which we don’t talk about such issues, where the consequences of addressing them are discouragement enough.

But we decided that there is strength in numbers.  One act, one march, does not a full reversal make, but the subtle shifts that occur when we join together, as a community, to question what we have come to normalize, and to begin to envision and practice alternate responses, is profound…

How we got to this point was no small miracle.  Our first few days with Thokozani, devoted to creating a safe space and to building trust, were powerful but, again, growth certainly doesn’t happen in one steadily ascending line, and the work of becoming conscious of the ways we relate to ourselves and to each other (and, by extension, to the larger forces in the world) is ongoing. 

the circle: where no one is greater or less than anyone else

Unlike last year’s project highlighting food issues, the success of this year’s procession (with its express focus on girls’ empowerment) would be dependent upon each girl being able to feel ownership of the content and process, to feel that her voice was heard.

We finally reached consensus in what we wished to create only after an afternoon spent stitching together pieces of blue fabric to form a river, having decided that water was an essential element in our procession, a symbol of the transition from girlhood to womanhood, and of washing off what is not ours to carry.

And then, suddenly, everything fell into place at the eleventh hour.  We formed a drum section...

We rehearsed, refining the structure of the narrative and creating the performative elements…

We were kindly granted another radio spot on KQ FM 97.0, a community-run station in Zwide, to speak about our procession…

We were interviewed by the Port Elizabeth-based Bay TV, and received coverage in the local press.  

And here’s what it looked like on the day-of… 

 Thokozani joined us.  The directors of the Thuthuzelakani Care Center, a rape crisis organization, saw fit to join us.  Photographers were present, including one from the Herald. 

We marched through the roads, singing.  People came out of their houses to watch, to cheer in support, and also to join the procession, until we were a band of some 150 people.

At open spaces, we stopped to perform scenes from our narrative.  And the structure for it that we found together was this: we used masked characters and the large-scale articulated puppets we’d built to enact each of the wounds we’ve received, at home, in school, in our communities, each with its own simple choreographed movements that told our stories.  Following the Theater of the Oppressed and Forum Theater techniques we’d learned, the action of the oppression (a teacher beating students in a classroom, a mother finding money for alcohol but not food, a would-be rapist taking advantage of a young girl’s vulnerability) was performed in silence, without voice, until that moment when someone from the group yells “Stop!” 

At this point, everything now becomes real, as actors replace both the oppressors (the puppets) and the oppressed (children behind masks), who now are without masks and with voices.  Each unmasked child’s declaration (“We do not deserve this!”, for example), an interruption of what has become normalized, is mic-checked, of course, allowing ALL present to own these words.

But possibly the most meaningful part of the entire procession came at its close.  In our final scene, we report the rape that has occurred, clearly pointing to the willfully blind eyes of police and family that we confront, yet act in the face of nonetheless.  It was at this juncture that the girls began to facilitate a speak-out, a forum where members of the community were invited to ask questions and to share comments.  And in the midst of unequivocally naming names, the girls were met with only fierce support for their actions, and for their message.  Elders, especially, who might very well have found this a disrespectful challenging of what needs to remain private, spoke of the girls’ courage and right to be safe in their own homes and roads and, further, themselves challenged the willful blindness of many family members as being an unarguable part of the problem.

  And it was just about then that the potent winds for which Port Elizabeth is renowned decided they had waited long enough.  We battled our dusty, hilly, way back up to the school, song having become an impossibility in those insistent gusts. 

What is so significant to me, to us, is that the story does not even end here, the actions of this day, and the weeks leading up to it, did not go to rest with the concluding of this march; they were merely the seeds of something that is growing its own legs, so to speak.

 And more on this shall follow…

[shangrilaladida]

We Have Begun...

YoH! (the unofficial exclamation of choice of the Xhosa language…)

So many things about this year’s procession are different.  The very nature of this one, a public art project aiming to make visible the issues identified by, experienced by, girls, demanded a different approach, a different entry point, than the one we’d taken last year for our procession about food and hunger.

a self-sewn shirt... 

Because the world really does work in some awe-inspiring ways, I found myself introduced to Thokozani Ndaba, an artist, educator, and activist who uses applied theater practices in her work with marginalized communities, to bring about healing and social change.  Plus, she is from here, of here, and was able to open a conversation into the content of this procession in a way no one else could.

the powerhouse that is thokozani... 

And so unlike last year, we devoted our first week to process, process, process, using theater games to create unity, and therefore safety, but most crucially, the opportunity, especially among girls, to practice using their voices to express their concerns and needs.

 the girls...

Through exercises taken from Brazilian theater practitioner Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, the girls very bravely began to share their thoughts and feelings about abuse, where it occurs in family, in school, in the community.

This past week has seen us in a separate boys’ space and a girls’ space.  In conversation, boys explored the ways in which they suffer when women do.  They contributed their efforts to building puppets and sewing banners for the procession…

  the puppet master...

"we support girls"...

…while girls have been developing the content and form of the narrative.

The structure this procession is taking has us first describing, with puppetry, masks, and movement, the ways we have hurt and the ways we interrupt those acts by remembering we do not deserve abuse. It then has us using our voices and bodies in song and dance and poetry, remembering our creative power and resilience.  Finally, we remember who our allies are, and we call out the kind of behaviors we want from the adults around us, we call out our ideal of our world.

 rehearsing with the fabulous Zukiswa...

the future...

Making the transition from the applied theater practices that informed the content, to guiding the girls in adapting those practices to a public venue, in identifying ways to give visual form to the procession, and to making use of the mediums available to us, has not been an easy task for me, has been a real learning curve.  I’m very fortunate, however, to be amongst some remarkable and inspired teaching artists, and amongst some equally remarkable, courageous and inspiring, young women.

Until next, here's a glimpse of what for…

[shangrilaladida]

international day of the girl child...

and because it is, TODAY, please consider helping out in this way:

make happen a girls' empowerment procession in joe slovo township this november, in the eastern cape of south africa.  challenging entrenched silences, building new muscles, providing a platform for girls to have a voice...

please join us, be part of this.  with love...

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/170086?a=199993&i=emal.

[peacecorps]

Today is the first-ever International Day of the Girl Child. 

The day was established by the the United Nations General Assembly to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges they face around the world. It’s an occasion for reaching out and educating others about the status of girls and the positive results that can be obtained by investing in them and is a good platform for engaging girls directly and offering them an opportunity to interact with positive role models. 

How did you help empower young women during your Peace Corps service? 

[shangrilaladida]

here we go again...

the work of preparing to return to joe slovo township has begun.  and this year it is girls and the issues faced by girls in the country, that will be the driving force behind this procession.

  amandla and the girls during our october 2011 procession...

and why do this again? well, not just because we’ve been invited back, nor because last year was an even bigger experience for all involved than we’d expected.  but it’s mainly because conditioned silence can be the very worst lesson to drill into a girl…

of course this is a global issue, but here’s one slice of it in our world, and i continue to hold the oft-stated view that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

through the work i’ve gotten to do over the years with socially-conscious theater companies, with different youth groups, time and again i get to see the power of art to allow folks young and old to consider new ideas.  and the power of making that art collectively as an antidote to silence.

my hero...

i grew up with the message and the practice that it was much safer to stay silent about the many terrifying things i was witness to or experienced.  and that’s a socially conditioned way some of us absorb as part of being female: always do what is asked of you.  so this issue hits really close to home.

last year’s procession marked the kids’ first experience of making a public statement, of making their art and their voices very public.  it also marked my first visit to south africa. 

and here’s a glimpse into what most deeply impressed me in that initial visit…

first, it was the expanded understanding of family that i got to see.  in my own life, i’ve been lucky enough to have amongst my own closest folks examples of the largest, most flexible, interpretations of family (something that goes way beyond any blood ties), to have found my own chosen, extended, family of misfits as i came of age and raised my son.  in the township, too, was everyone as intimately dependent on each other; each child is every other child’s sibling, everyone is sisi and brother.

we stand together...

it’s the living definition of the also oft-quoted southern african concept of ubuntu: i am, because you are. 

archbishop desmond tutu explains it as “the essence of being human…the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation…we think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world.”  it’s our belonging to a greater whole and being “diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, tortured or oppressed.”

his words remind me of the argument against interpreting nature as a survival of the fittest, of recognizing that what keeps the whole thing from collapsing is an intricate network of interdependencies and cooperation (if dominance really was the main operating principle, we’d have been done for long ago).

non-dominance in action at addo national park...

it also left a deep impression on me that a culture that has experienced such massive and fundamental disregard for human dignity nonetheless produced the likes of a desmond tutu.  out of that painful history came someone who deeply believes that innately “we are good”.  and his belief in the existence of our goodness is not unlike the buddhist understanding that we are at all times capable of everything from the greatest kindness to the greatest harm, depending upon which seeds, which tendencies, we choose to water.

how we respond to all circumstances and moments shapes the entirety of our experience.  not unlike the way xhosa children are taught to receive, when something is offered, not with one hand extended (a gesture of “give me”, as i have done countless times), but rather always with two hands cupped together, a physical demonstration of gratitude that colors an exchange.

it’s what allows us to keep moving, and with our spirits and dignity intact, through all manner of suffering and injustice.  which is very much where the processional art piece of this comes in, using art making to respond to our world.  seeing it not only as a vehicle for social change but also as an essential tool that allows us to strengthen and feel alive and fed and in our own power. 

so here’s what i found nourishing, during my time in south africa: the work of peter clarke, whose lifetime of printmaking, collage and book arts, spans the period from the instigation through the demise of apartheid…

listening to distant thunder...

for some the pathway to education lies between thorns...

which reminds me of another image at addo...

some of which i saw at the national gallery in cape town.

cape town's unimaginably commanding table mountain, visible from everywhere, including the national gallery...

and also: rushay booysen (www.rushay.org), a photographer and hip-hop activist who demonstrates the power of music to re-create culture and relationship to self.

sebenzile zalabe ([email protected]), a hip-hop producer and community radio activist who gave us air time to speak publicly about our procession. 

zamuxolo mgoduka (https://www.facebook.com/zamuxolo.mgoduka), a master drummer who performs internationally yet found a way to march and drum with us last year. 

and mary ann kella (https://www.facebook.com/black.stone.77715), a phenomenal sculptor and then-grad-student at nelson mandela university where i saw work that absolutely blew my mind. 

all folks who inspired me not only with their skills and artistry, but with their commitment to giving of themselves, and of their work, for the benefit of a bigger picture…

so until next, here’s one last mention, amandla siguba, whose brilliant beadwork embodies for me the essence of these forthcoming efforts…

 a traditional xhosa image of woman-power...

[shangrilaladida]

ukutya kusenza somelele...

“food makes us strong”.  this is the name the children chose for their procession.  we made posters, and hung them throughout the township.

we were photographed for the front page of the regional “weekend post”, and interviewed on a local radio station to share the word of the forthcoming event.

we spent our last few afternoons in rehearsal, practicing what it is to march and pause to perform scenes, to use the drums to cue actions, to provide a rhythm for the movements and songs of each scene.  to get a feel for operating the puppets in a controlled, believable, way, and as a unit, working together. 

  the wind was terribly ferocious just two days before the procession, but the morning of the 22nd of october found us with a calm and clear sky, a most kind answer to our collective intention-setting and prayers. 

so what was this day like? imagine the sweetest, most powerful, young voices echoing throughout the streets of joe slovo township (“louder!”). a large banner proclaiming “ukutya kusenza somelele, food makes us strong” stands at the head of this long train (u loliwe) of some 60 beautiful kids that snakes down dusty hills and through narrow streets, a line of fiercely proud drummers bringing up the rear, and the whole procession punctuated by brightly collaged puppets dancing high overhead.

   so here’s what the kids came up with as a way to speak out…

scene one: the children, whose empty bowls are filled with vegetables by mama, the woman who cooks in the school, as they sing, “ukutya, ukutya, ukutya nga mandla” (the food, it feeds you).

scene two: the puppets from bisho, the regional seat of government, they appear…

(no cameras, please...)

…and play a game of give and take with the suitcase full of rand notes that funds the lunch program, ultimately plucking from the children’s bowls each piece of food that had been there.

and one by one, to the rhythm of the djembes, the empty bowls are turned over to reveal the words si lambile (“we are hungry”).

and the children responded by singing more loudly, drumming more fiercely, dancing so gorgeously, and our procession swelled as neighbors joined us.

  and finally, scene three: iskolo, school, where we see “how can a hungry child concentrate in class with a stomach that roars like a lion?”…

…and where this hungry lion delivers to bisho the invitation to come to the township and see for themselves the consequences of their policies. 

we didn’t get to go to bisho during my stay, but in the days that followed our procession, we brainstormed ideas for a what-comes-next action.  what the kids chose to do was write letters to the department of education there, asking for its support in reinstating the lunch program, explaining the effects of its absence, and the project they’d built in response.  

so what did happen in undertaking this entire project?  our initial question had been one of exploring how we can use art, use beauty, to demonstrate our concerns, to invite people to listen, building upon the country’s already strong history of doing so.  and our initial hope had been to offer kids, through the act of collective art making, an experience of their feeling their own power to affect change.

did we do this? there was one exceptional moment during our procession, something so heartbreakingly beautiful to me.  while the whole length of us descended a hill leading to the house of the mayor of the township, i stepped aside and caught a glimpse of us all dancing in the streets, smiling to each other mid-song. i could see the little ones watching and absorbing, and the elder folks cheering.  i could feel everyone so electrified, so powerful, so shining, and the whole thing became as this living example of what the commitment of the kids created. 

it was a living example, too, of the generosity of all involved. the teaching artists gave of themselves, and the kids gave of themselves, fully and completely, and not only for themselves, but for fellow children in surrounding schools dealing with the same situation.  it was an example of art being a vehicle of generosity instead of the vehicle of self-aggrandizement i’m more used to seeing. 

and it was also a living example of how art making is a certain type of nourishment of its own, an essential one that allows us to strengthen and feel alive and fed and in our own power…

(all photographs in this post courtesy of john lombardo)

[shangrilaladida]

Everything is looking so amazing! I teared up, so very proud of you my dear!!

you, my ever-inspiring, ever-affirming, friend, i thank you, yet this is so not something i am doing, or can do, alone...

[lynoregalore-blog]

[shangrilaladida]

lynoregalore:

The amazing singer/songwriter/artist Maya Azucena wore some of my jewelry for her Beyond Race Magazine cover shoot! Beautiful pics and a great article, check it out!